


please do not leave your children unattended

by Dheerse, sadeyebrow



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Accidental Death, Child Death, Drowning, Everybody Lives, Gen, Resurrection, he dies but he's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 07:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11962356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dheerse/pseuds/Dheerse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadeyebrow/pseuds/sadeyebrow
Summary: They discovered Tenseiga's ability to reanimate the dead purely by accident.





	please do not leave your children unattended

**Author's Note:**

> so this came about late one night when dheerse was texting me talking about sessh's childhood. we had already established he had a traumatic experience w near-drowning so we figured may as well go all out. death time
> 
> (oh also we have this whole thing mapped out with the inuyoukai, they're a matrilineal society that lives communally with a matriarch who acts as their leader. there are a few colonies of inuyoukai around, but sesshoumaru's mother's is the biggest/most politically relevant. they live in the castle & the surrounding lands & keep to themselves for the most part. the exception is inu no taisho, obviously, who goes out conquering with his armies n shit. the inuyoukai think he's cool because he's improving their reputation & people will be less willing to fuck with them once they know they're the same kind of demon as the inu no taisho)
> 
> and i named sessh's mom n dad in this fic because referring to them exclusively as sessh's mom and dad just sounds bad (the fanon names suck ass.) mom is yuuna, dad is kenta.

“This sword has power.” Her partner, the conqueror, had told her once. 

He had set the sword aside after a time, but he would still occasionally bring it up in conversation. She supposed that meant it was important to him. Holding the blade up for her inspection, he told her how he found the ore used in its making deep in the Underworld. He traveled far and fought innumerable creatures for a powerful, precious gem. Afterward, he had taken the ore to the most esteemed smiths in the land, and wrought a sword made from otherworldly stone and his own body. He always enjoyed telling that tale, she mused. He had always been very good at bragging. The conqueror told her how his soldiers spoke of him in awe. He would share stories from the battlefield, of how he would rush in, sword in hand, ready to fight any opponent brave or reckless enough to face him.

What he always failed to mention were things that painted him in a bad light. Her conqueror and consort was very good at spinning the truth. It had taken ages for him to admit the reason he had this new sword crafted was because he had failed. He couldn’t get the power he had stolen to cooperate with him. Her brave, foolish partner needed a place to put his unwanted meidou zangetsuha, and a sword crafted partly out of a meidou stone was an attractive option. Thus Kenta, the general, as he started calling himself, came into possession of two swords. _This would make him twice as powerful_ , she overheard him bragging once. (She fought the urge to roll her eyes.) None of it interested her. She had listened to him describe a hundred battles, all of them ending the same: with his enemies vanquished and he, the dog general, victorious. He could continue to sing his war songs if it gave him pleasure, but she was only around him because of the duties of her station.

“The colony needs a leader, you need an heir.”

The father of her child bored her, but she was appreciative of his strength. When he was out winning glory and land for her people, she was in the castle, ruling over the inuyoukai and raising the next matriarch. The throne would pass to her whelp when she grew too old, and then to her granddaughter in time. That would have been the way of things in the matrilineal inuyoukai colony, if her child hadn’t started insisting she was a boy. For the most part, everyone was neutral. They didn’t care what the heir called himself so long as there was one. They traded in his old name for one of his choosing. Sesshoumaru. It was not a name his mother would have chosen; it was too dramatic, she sniffed. But once he made up his mind, there was no convincing the child otherwise. His mother, the matriarch, didn’t care what Sesshoumaru did so long as her son served the colony. He had to rule one day and give her people a daughter, just as she did.

Her duty had been fulfilled, her people were safe, they had an heir. Everything was secure. Until it wasn’t.

* * *

 

Sesshoumaru stood idly on a bridge overlooking the river. The servants who cared for him were sitting in the shade close by, gossiping amongst themselves and not paying much attention to the child. Sesshoumaru didn't mind, he preferred being left alone. Today he had no lessons to go to, or training sessions to attend, and he meant to spend the day in relative peace by the river. The responsibilities of being the future regent were unending, his mother told him repeatedly, but his governess had taken mercy on him and given him a day to relax. Idly, he wondered what it would feel like to wade in the river fully clothed. It was a hot day and in the full sun he had begun to sweat a little.

From where he stood, he could see several fish in the clear, fast-moving water. One, a big grey catfish, broke the surface of the water with a splash. One of the servants looked up at the noise, then turned back to her companion, clearly more interested in castle gossip than what was happening in the river. Sesshoumaru toyed with a knife he had kept hidden in one of his long sleeves. It had been a gift from his father, newly returned from yet another one of his conquests. Sesshoumaru had been so thrilled to receive it, he almost wasn’t upset with how his father dismissed him immediately afterward.

Bringing the knife up, he watched it glint in the sunlight, thumb rubbing over a notch in the blade. It looked worn, but Sesshoumaru treasured it. He rarely saw his father, let alone received any gifts from him. He started to twirl the knife between both hands, mimicking something he had seen another child do during training several weeks ago. He would sharpen and polish this when he got home, he thought. Or he would get one of his servants to do it for him. Either way it would soon look impressive, and he would cherish it. This was what he was thinking before he fumbled and watched his father’s present fall into the river. The young boy’s heart dropped. Leaning over the railing, he could see the blade under the water, caught between several rocks. It didn’t look too deep, he thought as he crouched down, peering through the wide gaps left between the bars of the railing. Casting a brief glance over at his servants, he crept under the rail. He knew this was something he would get in trouble for, but he wanted the knife back. Sesshoumaru extended his arm out, barely brushing the surface. Just a little farther, he thought as he stretched, moving more of his body further off the bridge. He tried to keep himself stable, holding onto the railing with one hand while dipping the other into the water. His sleeve was immediately soaked through and he tried to pull it back to keep it from getting wet, letting go of his anchor on the bridge. In the half second before he fell in, he realized his mistake. Sesshoumaru found himself losing his balance, then he hit the water with a loud splash.

The river was deeper than he thought it was, and the current much stronger. He gasped half a breath before his head went under. He scrambled to grab hold of something, anything, but the current was moving too fast. Sesshoumaru felt a sudden pain on the back of his head as he collided with something. The pain was so strong it dazed him and he took a sharp breath on instinct. He sputtered as water entered his lungs and he fought to reach the surface. He could not touch the bottom here, he realized, and his heavy, water-laden robes were preventing him from moving upwards. He felt his chest begin to hurt. he needed air.

Sesshoumaru tried to swim but his long robes tangled and he thought he felt them snag on something, keeping him down. He let out a cry, hoping the servants could hear him, but he could hardly hear himself over the rush of water. A quiet stream of bubbles escaped his mouth, but it brought him no rescue. Sesshoumaru was panicking now, and the ache in his chest grew stronger. He shouted. He screamed. He kicked and reached for the surface, desperate for air, but was trapped under the current and the weight of his soaked clothing. Sesshoumaru choked as water filled his mouth and nose, brackish fluid entering his lungs. Every fiber of his being screamed for air.

“Please, please don’t let me drown.” He was begging silently but he didn’t know who he hoped would answer. His father? The servants? Some god? Sesshoumaru didn’t care, he was desperate. He needed to reach the surface, he needed air, but to the drowning boy, the surface seemed as distant as the moon.

“Don’t let me drown.” He hated feeling so helpless, he thought as the world began to grow dark. Sesshoumaru could hardly focus on anything over the pain in his chest. His limbs thrashed uselessly and he took in another lungful of water, eyes blurring. He thought he imagined someone’s hand grabbing him, but everything was fading, and soon after it was all dark.

* * *

 

The screaming should have alerted her that something was up. 

Hama, her son’s most recent nanny, had burst into her quarters, crying and insisting the matter was urgent. The matriarch half expected her to say something like “Sesshoumaru fought too hard in training today and sprained his wrist” or “the boy refuses to read anything for his lessons and has a meltdown when you take away his toy sword,” so the woman’s news hit her harder than she was expecting. The matriarch was surprised to find a knot of worry forming in her stomach as the nanny blubbered out an explanation.  _ It happened so fast. The river. Looked away for just a moment. Pulled him out in time. Still hasn’t woken up. _

Enraged with both the crying and Hama’s gross ineptitude, she slapped her. The servant brought a hand to her cheek, eyes wide.

“Where is he now?” She demanded.

“Yuuna-sama, my lady, please forgive me,” began the useless servant.

“No.” She let all the weight of her authority fall into that one syllable. This fool had let her child drown, she would get no mercy from her. “Your only task was to keep the heir safe, a task at which you failed. Miserably. Now tell me. Where is my son?” Yuuna let her eyes bleed red and she flared her youki. Properly intimidated, the servant shrank back.

“H-he’s in the west wing.” She stuttered.

Yuuna was already out the door by the time the servant had finished speaking.

 

There was a small group gathered around her son when she entered the room. The matriarch barked out a command and they all dispersed, fluttering like a flock of upset birds, to make way for the boy’s mother. The matriarch's eyes fell on Sesshoumaru’s body and at once she grew very still. She had been told her son was still alive.

“My lady…” Someone began. She did not notice who spoke. She did not care.

She never realized how tiny he was, Yuuna thought as she looked over the body. Of course he was small, he was a child, barely six years old. His hair was still wet, and she reached down to brush a long strand out of his eyes. His eyelids used to flutter whenever she did that, she recalled. He was so still now.

Some part of her ached knowing she had come so far only to lose another child.

“Yuuna-sama,” said another one of the attendants.

“How long?” she was expecting her voice to be rough, emotional, but it was decidedly clear. This shouldn’t surprise her, she was never the emotional sort. “How long has it been since…” She trailed off, gaze falling back to her son. He looks fine, she wanted to say. Look at him, he's just sleeping. Any minute now he would sit up and demand to be told more stories about his father. He was fine. 

“Soon after we brought him back to the castle, my lady. We did everything we could, we did our best”

Yuuna’s temper flared. “Your best wasn't good enough!” She snapped. “Leave us.”

The half dozen servants and healers in attendance bowed and hurried out of the room.

She sighed and sank down, kneeling over the boy's body. His father would have to be told, she thought. Kenta had left early this morning with a convoy, on his way back to his armies. Someone would have to summon him and tell him the news. She wondered if the great general would care.

She closed her eyes, placing a hand over her son's cheek. He was pale; death had drained what little colour he had from his face. She leaned in close over the body and hesitantly brushed her lips over the moon mark on his forehead. They would need a new heir, she thought glumly. The matriarch was not looking forward to that.

Yuuna rose and fetched a sheet sitting at the foot of the bed. She carefully draped it over her son’s small form, watching as his wet clothes soaked the shroud.

Then she turned on her heel and left the dead boy’s room as quickly as she came.

 

As Sesshoumaru's mother dealt with the funeral preparations, his father returned to the castle. The general had been tracked down and was flying back to see his son. One of the guards had seen the shape of an enormous dog on the horizon and alerted everyone in the castle. Upon arrival, general demanded to be taken straight to the boy. News was spreading of the heir’s death. Word had gotten out among the staff and everyone was shaken. Sesshoumaru had not been a friendly child, but he was a child nonetheless, and he had died too young. 

The matriarch was in the room with Sesshoumaru when her consort came barging in.

“Where is he?” She heard him demand to a servant in the hall. The door slid open a moment later and the general’s bulky form cast a shadow over the room. She did not bother to look, and she heard a loud thud as he set down whatever he had been carrying with him. A figure appeared by her side, all armour-clad and sweaty.

“I came as soon as I heard.” He said.

“I know.”

Sesshoumaru would have been touched by how quickly his father had returned. His mother, however, would not have minded if he had stopped to bathe first. Yuuna wrinkled her nose. The man smelled as though he had been travelling for weeks, and not a few hours.

“What happened to him?” He asked as he looked over the tiny body. The messenger must have been brief with the details, Yuuna thought. She told him everything she knew, all of what she had learned from her son's incompetent caretaker. Sesshoumaru had been left alone on a bridge and fell in the river. The servants heard a splash and ran to pull him out, but by the time they got him to shore he had taken in a lot of water. They managed to get him to start breathing again but he never woke up. All this the matriarch recounted in a steady, even voice. As if it happened long ago to some stranger and not to her only son this morning.

They sat together in silence for a while, mourning their child in their own separate ways, until Yuuna announced she still had duties to attend to and left the room. Before she left, she dryly asked the boy’s father if he would consider taking a bath before entering her presence again. She knew the duties of her station, she knew she was required to provide another heir for the colony, but she would rather die than fuck this sweaty, stinking man the way he was now.

The day passed quickly; all other responsibilities had been set aside in favour of planning Sesshoumaru’s funeral. His father had stayed by the boy’s side for another hour, until he too left to go see to his other needs. When Kenta left the room he dismissed the guard standing by in the corridor. A corpse doesn’t need protecting, he said. Go find something useful to do. 

No one else came into that room, in fact most inhabitants of the castle tried to avoid the west wing entirely. In death as in life, Sesshoumaru was lonely. His body was left by itself in that room well into the night. But although there was no one with him, he was not alone in the most literal sense. On the floor where his father had discarded his things lay an unassuming sword, and it shone with an otherworldly energy.

* * *

 

It felt as though time stopped in the small room where the heirloom lay; the air was as still as the boy lying draped in wet robes.    
  
Only if one had payed close attention they might have taken note of the soft glimmer of an unwanted artifact in another corner of the chamber.    
They might have felt the soft flare of energy, like the sun igniting the moon, the sword called to the boy.    
Called to him as he was taken deeper and further away to a place only it was purposed to reach.    
  
And at once the discarded sword breathed life back into the discarded boy, with a single glimmer it removed all traces of death from the room. One might've thought it was a mere trick of their vision, no more than a mirage to fool whoever dared to hope for the impossible.   
Yet, Sesshoumaru woke up.

* * *

 

His first thought upon opening his eyes was that everything was cold and uncomfortably wet. His second was  _ why is there a bed sheet over me? _

Sesshoumaru swept the sheet aside and rubbed his eyes, groggy. He felt as though he had taken a very long nap after training too hard; he was sore and disoriented by how much time had passed. Sitting up, he kicked off the rest of the bedsheet and wondered how he came to be so damp. He remembered a river, the rush of moving water singing a harsh melody in his ears, and he remembered fighting to get to the surface. But he couldn't remember anything more than that. It had to be a strange dream, he thought as he got up and wandered down the hall. Peering around the corner, he looked for a passing guard or servant, anyone who he could ask what was going on. This part of the castle seemed empty, he noticed as he walked, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him. He couldn't tell what time it was. Sesshoumaru looked out at the sky but couldn’t see the position of the stars, his eyes were still blurry. The only thing visible to him was a bright full moon. Perhaps it was very late and everyone had already gone to sleep.

He turned another corner and saw a figure pacing the halls. As the person came closer, he recognized it to be his mother. She looked startled when she saw him and stopped her pacing. Uncertain, Sesshoumaru walked forward.

“Sesshoumaru…?” She asked softly

“Yes mother?” His voice was rough, like he hadn’t used it in days. He coughed a bit, clearing his throat.

“What are you doing?” She sounded as if she was talking to a wild animal who may startle and run off. His mother's body language screamed caution.

Sesshoumaru paused. “I was cold.” And wet. And he didn’t know how he got here.

“Do you remember what happened?” She prompted  His mother’s voice was unusually gentle. He looked down at his feet, abashed. Sesshoumaru could remember thinking he was going to get in trouble, and he didn’t want to be cold, wet, and facing his mother’s fury right now. He kept his mouth shut and shook his head.

The matriarch knelt down in front of the child and brought a soft hand up to his cheek. Startled, Sesshoumaru stayed completely still. Here was more attention from his mother than he usually got in a week. It seemed as though she was looking him over, searching for anything wrong with him. Sesshoumaru’s eyes flicked from his mother’s hand to her face, and in the moonlight he saw she wore a concerned expression.

“Mother, what’s going on?”

She was silent. Sesshoumaru thought an explanation wasn’t too much to ask for, but didn’t question her again. Eventually, she rose and took his hand in hers.

“Come, you’ve have a long day,” she said as she led him down the hall. “You need a warm bath and then go straight to bed.”

Sesshoumaru hid his confusion and followed his mother. She woke several servants, and stayed with him as he was bathed and dressed in soft dry clothes. She even astounded him by tucking him into bed. Sesshoumaru had no idea what was making her act so maternal, but was too tired to question it. The young boy fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 

Once the matriarch left her son’s quarters, she walked briskly to the room where they had left his body. She needed to be sure she hadn’t hallucinated or seen some kind of ghost. She threw open the door and saw that the bed upon which they had laid little Sesshoumaru was empty, and a trail of wet footprints lead to where she had encountered him this evening. Yuuna was shaken, but grateful. She didn’t know how her son had returned to her, but she knew the child sleeping in Sesshoumaru’s bed was her real, living son. As she examined the room, her eyes fell on a pile of things belonging to her consort. He had dropped them here when he came in, she remembered. And he forgot to take them with him when he left. Typical Kenta. There was something underneath his travel sack that was emitting a faint white light. Pulling it out, she saw it was one of his swords. Not the main one he used in battle, no this was the one he had crafted to hide away the energy technique he had stolen from that one ogre, the ugly one with half a face. It was made of the same material as the necklace he had given her, she recalled, a material he had found in the underworld. She pulled the sword out of its sheath and watched as the light faded, slowly becoming a cold silver once again. Alone in that moonlit room, she held onto the Tenseiga for a long time, thinking.

 

She did eventually confront her consort about the sword. She brought it to his chambers early the next morning, expecting he had already heard the news of Sesshoumaru’s mysterious revival. The general was happy to know his son was alive again, and claimed he was on his way to see him “in an hour or two, after I deal with some things. If I get around to it.”

Yuuna put the general’s morning plans on hold, telling him her matters were more pressing. Laying the sword out in front of him, she asked if he knew the Tenseiga could bring people back to life. His wide eyes and shocked expression answered that question for her. The matter settled, she left the sword in his incompetent hands and went to go check on her son. Kenta was full of surprises, she mused as she left his quarters. As much to himself as to other people.

Sesshoumaru recovered. The news of his death had been passed off as a rumour or a misunderstood piece of gossip, and had been quickly disproven when the boy showed up, decidedly alive, the next day. He carried a healthy fear of water with him well into adulthood, and nobody ever told him the extent of what happened that day at the river. His father eventually learned how to use the Tenseiga as a tool of resurrection and healing, and it came as no surprise to his mother when he was left with the sword as inheritance. Tenseiga chose Sesshoumaru, she figured. Though it took Sesshoumaru several decades to truly appreciate the sword, he eventually came to terms with it. It was rather satisfying to watch, his mother thought. And when he resurrected the human girl, it felt as though things had come full circle.

**Author's Note:**

> (dheerse wrote the bit where sessh is being revived! that was them & not me)


End file.
